A photo op with a pink throne, an icon tied to the Deadfellaz NFT project, was a centerpiece of the activation.
Taking over downtown Los Angeles, DeadZone LA, a one-night-only event in October, transformed Skylight ROW DTLA’s industrial landscape into a post-apocalyptic basecamp among factory ruins set in the world of Deadfellaz. The Web3 brand—which was born from a 10,000-piece NFT collection of zombie characters released in 2021—invited the Deadfellaz community (known as the Horde), fellow NFT projects, and sponsors Gala Games and Ledger to its largest in-person event yet. Attendees were encouraged to come in costume (“imagine what you or your favorite NFT would look like in the world of the Horde”) for a spooky Halloween-themed night filled with live music and entertainment in both the real world and the metaverse.
“These collections and the brands that are born around them have highly engaged audiences. It’s not like a relationship that a typical brand would have with an audience. It is more of a value exchange, and we are very much involved in the communities that are around our brands as founders that run NFT projects and Web3 brands,” says Betty, founder of Deadfellaz. “For [events], it’s really just a case of knowing where people are going to be and communicating that this is happening.”
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Fire breathers, stilt walkers, contortionists and acrobats roamed the streets, and attendees enjoyed games at pool and craps tables, local food trucks and a dj set by Emo Nite. Exclusive previews of unreleased Deadfellaz merch were also available at the event. For its ticketing, DeadZone LA used tokenproof, which token gates real-world events based on NFT ownership, weaving an additional Web3 technology into the evening.
DeadZone LA marked Deadfellaz’s second in-person event. The first took place at NFT.NYC in June and featured Web3 artists and musicians. Having hosted events on both U.S. coasts, Betty says the vibes were different from New York City to L.A. but captured the same spirit of the brand.
DeadZone LA attendees were among the first to view unreleased Deadfellaz’s merchandise.
“It was just a different reimagining of the Deadfellaz world,” Betty says. “In every way that we show up in the real world, it needs to feel like you’re immersing yourself within this world that we’ve created around the Deadfellaz brand and the storytelling and the lore that’s woven into that. I want people to step into those events and feel that magic right away.”
A centerpiece at both activations was a pink throne, an icon tied to the NFT project, and it served as a photo op backdrop, along with smoking junkyard cars and prop biohazard barrels, for the Horde to snap selfies to share. According to Betty, social media is a key component of Deadfellaz’s brand identity and recognition among its community and partners.
“People attending the event are able to share what they’re doing, and people online are able to see that flow of their culture to the real world so seamlessly,” she says. “Being able to illustrate what these communities look like and how they act in the real world to brand partners, industry professionals and even just other industries—because we are a fledgling industry and the way that we do business is very new—it legitimizes all of that to the outside world in a context that they understand a little bit more than perhaps what’s going on in metaverse spaces.”
In addition to the 1,500 attendees at DeadZone LA, its complementary metaverse activation allowed users to be their Deadfellaz in Worldwide Webb, a pixel-based metaverse platform.
“There are lots of different metaverse spaces right now, and we use a lot of them. We experiment with them, see what limitations they have and how we can utilize them,” Betty says. “The metaverse spaces and activations definitely are always going to be something that we do. For me, it just really is so important to focus on the real-life connections, as well.” Agency: Mirrored Media.
Games of pool, craps tables and local food trucks were all part of Deadfellaz’s second-ever in-person event.
Photo credit: Deadfellaz
